It’s getting cold in New York, right in time for the holiday season. Thanksgiving has just passed and we are on the final stretch to Christmas! With that, I thought I’d give a small preview as to my next trip: Christmas break in the Netherlands.

1. I’m going on vacation again
2. Flight options between New York City and Amsterdam
3. How I’m flying to the Netherlands
4. Summary

I’m going on vacation again

I just came back from Japan (see here for my quick looks of my flights on the JAL A350 an B787), so why would I leave again? As some of you already know, I’m originally from the Netherlands. Mostly know for Amsterdam’s weed and red light district, the country is of course so much more than that! I’m not just talking about cheese, wooden shoes and tulips. The fact is that I haven’t been back since march 2023, so it’s high time to head back for a week to visit friends and family, and indulge in beer and Dutch beer snacks (e.g. bitterballen), visit my favorite cities and see what’s new.

Flight options between New York City and Amsterdam

The market between New York City and Amsterdam can be considered in a few different ways – that is, number of passengers and number of different airlines that serve this route. Amsterdam is a popular tourist destination, but of course will always lag behind the likes of Paris, and so isn’t served by as many airlines. That said, there still is a good number of airlines so that we would want to take a closer look at what airline we’d want to fly here.

In terms of direct flights, KLM, Delta and JetBlue serve Amsterdam from New York-JFK, while United serves Amsterdam from New York-Newark. So, it’s a fairly competitive market. KLM and Delta are, however, absolutely the strongest players. For one, KLM, as you may know, is the Dutch flag carrier, and so it makes sense that they would be the dominant airline on this route. However, KLM and Delta are both in SkyTeam and, together with Virgin Atlantic and Air France (and soon probably SAS) have a joint venture over Atlantic routes, which positions Amsterdam as a major funnel for European connectivity and beyond for SkyTeam.

The newest entrant here is JetBlue. JetBlue started flying on this route only a year or so ago, utilizing new A321neo aircraft. Their main benefit, as marketed, is the lower price given enhanced passenger comfort. Indeed, in business class JetBlue offers what looks like a very comfortable experience, with private suites (though doors may no longer be lockable), good food and good amenities. And, for a good price, too. Historically, if you book in advance, I’ve found JetBlue to be the cheapest nonstop option. However, the have only a single daily frequency, so you can’t be picky with flight timing.

Of course there are also plenty of one-stop itineraries. Through their own respective joint ventures United/Lufthansa/Brussels Airlines and American/British Airways can get you to Amsterdam as well. I have flown British Airways through Heathrow once and thought it was comfortable enough. Besides, there are also the likes of Norse Atlantic and Icelandair, the latter of which I’ve flown to Amsterdam with a stop in Reykyavik several times. Icelandair tends to give good value if you don’t mind the stopover, although their business class is not a ‘true’ business class product as we expect it these days. It’s more like what most airlines would market as premium economy. Still, I flew this product back in 2014 (true, it’s a while ago) and rather enjoyed it thanks in part to decent food and friendly service.

How I’m flying to the Netherlands

The truth is that I’m somewhat of a KLM loyalist so even though there are many options to choose from, in the end I tend to stick with KLM. There are a few reasons for this:

1. The first reason is convenience. After I had just moved to New York for school, I didn’t have money to pay for the direct fares of KLM and generally chose the cheapest fare I could find. That meant that I initially chose some one-stop itineraries with Air France (through Paris), Icelandair (through Reykyavik), and British Airways (through London). However, after those experiences with a layover, I decided I’d rather pay a little more to avoid the layover and stick with direct flights whenever possible.
2. In the realm of direct flights the choices at the time were mostly KLM or Delta, with occasional service with United or American. Delta was always the most flexible, while being a little cheaper than KLM. United and American at the time also had particualrly poor reputations – American was always late, and this was also around that time of the incident with the doctor on United. As such, I was certainly not compelled to fly with either of them, and so I opted for Delta. The service on that particular flight was however so atrocious (in particular rude, unhelpful and sometimes downright hostile) that I vowed never to fly Delta again. I know – I shouldn’t be so swayed by a single bad experience, but it has left such a bad taste in my mouth that I’ve not wanted to give a second chance.
3. The truth is that I have always had good experiences with KLM. This is despite the fact that they increasingly whittle down their standards. Seats have become less comfortable, service has become more sober, food portions have become smaller… I believe it’s generally an industry trend, especially on Western airlines, but having flwon KLM most of my life, it’s easy to follow along and see how things have changed for the worse. That said, what has not changed is the service style of KLM flight attendants, and to me this is a very important part of airline service. This may be controversial, but I’d rather fly on an airline with warm and friendly service and more sober offerings, than an airlines that gives you lots of stuff, with unfriendly and indifferent service.
4. As I have mentioned in the past, I’m trying to gain SkyTeam Elite status through KLM’s Flying Blue program. I’m currently silver status, thanks the Air France/KLM’s credit card, which grants 40XP after approval, and an extra 60XP after spending $3000 in 3 months. This gets you 100XP, which is enough to attain silver status. Now, I’m trying to accumulate an additional 180XP to attain gold status, and with that SkyTeam Elite Plus status. At this tier you get 2 free suitcases on SkyTeam flights as well lounge access, plus other benefits that will be useful when flying on SkyTeam member airlines.

So really, there wasn’t much of a choice here: I wanted a flight on a SkyTeam airlines at the very least, so the options immediately narrowed down to direct flights with Delta or KLM, or a one-stop itinerary through Paris with Air France. However, given my extreme hesitation with Delta, I ended up opting for KLM, as it was cheaper than one-stop itinaries through Paris on Air France.

In addition, I should add that I did go for a business class ticket. So, I’ll be flying KLM’s B787-10 World Business Class back and forth between New York-JFK and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport. Unfortunately, the seats on the B787 are not the very newest in KLM’s fleet, lacking the wireless charging and doors that the newest seats on the B777 have. I paid cash since I didn’t have enough points to fly there and back, and one-way flights to the US on KLM tend to have outrageous cash fares, so that a one-way award flight wouldn’t have saved my any money.

As such, you should expect reviews of:

• The Delta One Lounge New York-JFK.
• KLM’s World Business Class on the B787-10.
• The KLM Lounge at Schiphol’s International terminal.

I look forward to experiencing KLM’s most premium cabin, and I hope you look forward to my trip report! And perhaps this is illy, but I particularly look forward to the Delft Blue house that KLM’s gifts you at the end of the flights…

Summary

I will be flying back home for Christmas break, and will be doing so on KLM’s World Business Class, there and back. As usual I will post quick looks and review for the flights and lounges I visited. I hope you will join me on this short vacation!